If you’ve been missing a suitable replacement for your isometric squad-based shenanigans, and the turn-based mechanics of Shadowrun don’t take your fancy, then I have the game for you.
It’s called Satellite Reign, a game which Brisbane-based devs 5 Lives Studios successfully Kickstarted around this time in 2013. Despite having to ask people for pounds instead of US dollars — which can sometimes be an issue — the team raised £461,333, or nearly $1 million going off today’s exchange rates, to accomplish their vision.
The game, which is a more open-world take on the dystopian cyberpunk world Bullfrog crafted, has been in Early Access for several months and will finally be released next Friday. To celebrate, there’s a new launch trailer showing what it’s all about.
I’ve played around eight hours of the game so far and I’ll be forming a more complete take on the gameplay over the next week. It certainly channels the spirit of Bullfrog’s original games — back when the good old days really were the good old days.
Satellite Reign is available for purchase now on Steam for US$30. It has a 93% user rating from 265 reviews at the time of writing, although the majority of those reviews probably come from backers.
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22 responses to “Syndicate’s Spiritual Successor Satellite Reign Slips Out Of Early Access Soon”
At some point, someone has to explain to people what “decimate” actually means 🙂
In the words of immortal Inigo Montoya “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Hint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army)
The modern usage would make the trailer’s usage of decimate passable, surely.
“It is frequently used as a synonym for the word “annihilation” (the OED lists “annihilation” as meaning “to reduce to non-existence, blot out of existence”) or for “devastation” (to lay waste), to which it bears a syllabic resemblance.” (from the same Wiki link)
Although I’d probably have picked obliterate. Don’t think anyone will really mind/notice though.
Congratulations. Today – you are that guy.
Dev here. Fully aware of the historical meaning of the word ‘decimate,’ and I brought it up as an FYI for the team while making the trailer. The modern usage of the word is much less specific.
1. kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of.
“the inhabitants of the country had been decimated”
http://listverse.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/new_yorker_fewer_cartoon.jpg
Another one to feel clever about ;^)
Myriad used to mean explicitly 10,000, a clue (then spelled clew) was a ball of yarn, gay meant happy, awful was about being full of awe and hospitals were originally just shelters for the needy and unfortunate. Languages change based on the general interpretation of meanings for words, so while decimate may have originally had a strict meaning, the general understanding is “to destroy a great number of”.
I’ve been holding off for a non-beta release, but I’ve played around with it a little at various points in development and it’s shaping up to deliver on what it promised. It’s like Syndicate but deeper. It also feels like it’ll stand on it’s own so I’m curious to see how non-Syndicate fans will feel about it once it’s launched.
Do we get it for free if we bought it in early access
If you bought Early Access, then you already own the full game. The status will just change from Early Access to not Early Access.
Hi Jason,
Yes you will. If your steam is set to automatically update you will get the full version upon release.
Thanks 🙂
Backed this on KS. I’ve played it a handful of times, however the game suffered horribly from performance issues on my PC. I’ve not played it recently and I can only hope that with this last push to go out of EA, it will have seen some recent performance optimisations.
Same here but just played the latest build last night and it’s much better (incidentally it’s fantastic on a 21:9 monitor).
It is running very well on my computer now, so definitely give it another shot.
Pleasebegood pleasebegood pleasebegood pleasebegood…
I really really really hope the upcoming release date is due to the game being ready for release and not due to the developer running out of money and needing to ‘Release’ officially in order to get a second bite of the Steam ‘recent release’ front page market.
WAY too many Early Access games are releasing when the devs seem to run out of stamina or money and say, ‘Argh, that’ll do, if we take the time needed to squash ALL the bugs we won’t be able to keep the lights on’ or, ‘Yeah, the UI’s got problems but rebuilding it would involve another 3-6 months re-work.’
It is good, very good. But it definitely does not pander to the I press click, I win crowd. It requires some strategy and timing to succeed, and this is one of the many things I love about Satellite Reign. That, and they are a local Dev Team.
Well that’s reassuring. I got it on early access last year to make sure they got some early money for being local devs and having a noble goal, but haven’t been keeping up with it until it’s done.
I’ve burned myself way too badly by using up all my ‘new game enthusiasm’ on other games in early access when they were crappy. Planetary Annihilation, Wasteland 2, Kenshi… and others I’ve utterly forgotten.
The bug fix list they’ve been pumping out have been absolutely massive. Within the last few weeks they have been pumping out update after update with huge fix lists. Basically when they announced the game was content complete they went crazy working on the bug fixing.
I gave them $150 for this back in the day on KS at a felt being Australian and doing something very important to me they deserved a good chunk of money and so far I haven’t been disappointed. I eagerly look forward to running around trying to find myself in the game as a random civilian.
Although I didn’t spend as much, my sentiments are the same on how the game is shaping up – quality is top notch and really feels triple A. Love the grittiness of the setting and it’s lots of fun. Finding yourself as a random citizen – that’s brilliant 🙂 Cheers mate.
Depends on your back level as to whether you were included as NPC but I think it’ll be fun to find myself doing dumb AI civilian things.
I’ll look out for you too if its the same name as this forum and I’ll ensure I’ll clone you and not gun you down in cold blood on the dark streets.
I tried to play this at PAX and the demo PC hung and crashed so badly I had to leave, was disappointed 🙁